


Uncracking The Mirror

by Mangacat, silkylustre



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Community: pod_together, Dissociation, Gen, Healing, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15526200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkylustre/pseuds/silkylustre
Summary: Coming out of the ice for the final time, Bucky goes from mind control to control of mind.





	Uncracking The Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Terminal Velocity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418080) by [Mangacat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat). 



> Author's note: Oh my god, what a strange gestation this fic has had. I actually planned on a bigger story - though not by much - and a bit of plot rather than just a very abstract character piece, but I got the first part done and Silky recorded it in record-breaking speed and so perfectly that we decided that that was it, the story had emerged out of the block of marble and was complete. I'm so blessed with a very attentive and creative partner who managed to elevate the podfic version beyond my imagination and I'm insanely proud of it. Technically this story takes place in the same realm as my older fic "Terminal Velocity", but there's no need to read that to be able to understand or follow this story. Now go LISTEN because you'll find a lot in the recorded version that you won't find in the text :). 
> 
> Podficcer's Note:  
> I love Cat's writing: It gets better all the time and recording her words is a priviledge. Enjoy the awesomeness!  
> For Cat, I even attempt to pronounce Russian words. I would like to apologize for my probably horrible accent. Before this, I had never uttered a Russian word except "da" and "borschtsch", the latter only with difficulty. I tried. For Cat.  
> Cat's characters bring out my scratchy voice. I have no good explanation for this.  
> I experimented with music, and I hope you like it!

Download or stream the MP3: [Spoil your eardrums](http://silkylustre.parakaproductions.com/Marvel/Uncracking%20the%20Mirror.mp3)! (right click and save). Thanks so much for hosting, paraka!

  
  


…

…

…

There was sound… now. 

There didn’t use to be. 

At least he doesn’t think so. 

The inescapable stillness of his muscles seems familiar enough, though the cold does not feel as biting as he remembers the void to be. But then, remembering is a precarious business these days, especially when more than half of you is trapped behind a wall of mirrors of the making of your own mind. 

 

He turns, languorously, listening for more sounds from outside, never meeting the eyes of his reflexions in the cracked mirror, lest he finds someone looking back he don’t want to recognize. 

It is strange. He knows he has spent most of his life here, in this… unreality, a space conjured by his mind to deal with all the fractured, broken people that were made to live in his brain. But this is the first time he experiences it with any kind of awareness and control. 

Being in the driver’s seat really sucks when you cannot go anywhere. 

There are surprisingly many sounds to distract him though, and he is quite sure now that they didn’t use to have them. A quiet hum sounds close by that is most likely the machinery keeping him in suspension, further, beeps and clicks, an odd susurration that is there and gone, sounding like a speaker one minute and not the next. Music, a base rhythm that reverberates in the room with a sound you don’t need ears to hear. And above all of it, the clear, sharp voice of a young woman coming from a different direction every other beat, as if she’s bouncing around the space at a frenetic pace. He cannot make out distinct words, possibly because it is not a language he speaks – curiously enough – still, the accent is melodic, lilting in an exotic and soothing way.

He enjoys listening to her. 

 

Желание

 

It thunders through the empty space, the sound of that young woman’s voice cutting with an edge now instead of that sinuous, rolling cadence and the stillness is abruptly filled with LONGING so strong, he cannot move, he cannot think, only feel it wash through him like a flash flood. 

The sound of splintering glass drags him out of his sudden stupor, only to turn and find that a shard of the cracked mirror has been pressed from its place by actual water that is gushing through the opening, spreading onto the floor on this side, his side of what should conceivably be endless space, but somehow is still slowly filling up around his feet. The water smells brackish, oily, like an urban river. 

It laps at his bare toes, ice cold one second and soothingly warm the next, impossible currents. 

There is not a lot of time he can spend contemplating it however, for the gates have opened, and he finds himself waiting. Waiting for the next sound. Another word.  

 

Ржавый

 

And as soon as the image enters his mind, the scream of RUSTED hinges fills the air. A doorway long closed strains against moving, and he remembers this. Remembers the second step was always much more difficult than the first, which was always accompanied with stillness, a moment of pause. 

Before his mind is being pried open and he feels it, feels it in his bones that this was always the most precarious step, when his spirit reared up to fight, which is why what’s next is the middle ground, a respite, a traitorous illusion of peace. 

 

Семнадцать

 

The mirror is so close suddenly, mesmerizing because there are so many shards and each holds a different reflexion of himself, memories of his many lives. But the one in the center, right in front of his face, is the one he cannot turn away from, never can, no matter how much he wants to fight, wants them not to have found this secret to use against him. 

There was nowhere to hide it. 

So eventually they got to know, and they found it was the only thing to give him, to lead him to the next step. He’d never stopped fighting before. He observes himself in the glass, SEVENTEEN, wild-eyed and cocky, so sure the world was only waiting to lie down at his feet if he could only devise a way to escape his circumstance. 

He kind of pities that boy, because he is about to experience the first true epiphany of his life. 

In that moment, that boy felt like it was the beginning and the end of his whole world and he could not have been more wrong. There have been so many beginnings and ends since then, this should pale in comparison, but in all this time it has never faded. The moment he watches for with equal dread and anticipation is when they look at a young man, fair and slim and dabbing his scabbed knuckles carelessly against his bleeding nose, his eyes smouldering with the determination and fervour to stand up for what he thought was right and just and in need of defending. It’s not new, they’d been locked in this argument post scuffle many times, but in this moment, he found himself looking and falling and falling and quite sure in the same instance that the young man was never going to look back. (He did.)

 

Рассвет

 

The next word falls into his ears so fast, and with it falls the shard that held the memory. He expects to see the Other in the gap, watching, waiting, sharpening his knives, but this is not the time and place… yet. Instead the opening is filled with light this time, red, orange, russet, bright yellow, an impossible DAYBREAK on the endless horizon on the other side. All the shades of colour catch the eye, taking away every need to move, to think, to do anything but listen for the next…

 

Печь

 

…step which reveals that the light does not belong to the rising sun, it’s the heart of a FURNACE, smouldering, burning heat. The water around his feet starts steaming, a fine mist wafting up and when he looks down, he realizes for the first time that there are shackles around his feet, around his arms, chains leading away into the void, held fast invisible but yet so strong. He should be fighting, he is fighting, he knows, but the moment has passed, the snares are set and he stepped right into them, distracted by the shiny objects in front of him. An iron weight settles around his forehead and there’s a scream somewhere, far away, but he can’t look away now, he can’t, it’s too late, so he has no choice but to look at the…

 

Девять

 

…NINE companions, a gallery of faces in the mirror in front of him that are now not his own, but the people nearest to him, the last faces he sees every time before he gets erased, emptied out like a water jug. Men, one woman, fair, dark, young, older, rich, poor, compassionate, headstrong, brave, he’s already forgotten their names but not their faces, no, he knew them. They stay inside of him like ghosts, like the last drops of that stay in the jug and whatever it’s filled with next will invariably contain a taste, a few atoms of what came before and will therefore take on its quality just the littlest bit. 

 

Добросердечный

 

His eyes are fixed on those mirror shards when, one after the other, they fall out and splash into the still steaming water, tipped out of the mirror by an invisible hand from the other side. Only he knows exactly who’s slowly reaching in, wiping away every last memory, everything that makes him a person in favour of the Asset, and his brain has been taught painstakingly that this process is BENIGN, to let it happen as something natural, and the chains are slack already from where his body has stopped fighting in preemptive obedience before his mind even has a chance to catch up, but it’s different this time, maybe because he’s on the outside looking in, aware of what is happening and his spirit wants to fight, it wants…

 

Возвращение на родину

 

… not to live in fear anymore, not to feel the pain of his existence anymore, but the only option is to stand there, frozen, and wait for the HOMECOMING. 

 

Один

 

The crumbling wall in front of him finally ceases to be a mirror, becomes a looking glass and on the other side, oh, there he is, reaching through the gap, metal fingers sliding around the back of his head to pull him closer and he wishes the chains would hold him now, but they’ve fallen away, useless, superfluous. He draws close, forehead against forehead, like two bulls locked into a fight, pressure mounting as he feels the weight of all the words inside him, the urge to yield, to become ONE, but he isn’t there, he’s never going to be there again and they’ll have to do this by halves from now on, because there is the sound of a train coming, barrelling on icy rails and…

 

Товарный вагон

 

… the time is up, they’re falling. Falling. 

  
  


…

…

…

 

His back bows with incredible tension, anticipating the impact of a fall that ends in his own body and his eyes fly open against his better judgement, to land on a young woman with ebony skin and beaded threads in her braids and he has just a moment to wonder at where he landed when she opens her mouth: “Солдат?”


End file.
